


From the Ashes

by NoirSongbird



Series: Love Like Flowers [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, McHanzo Week 2017, or the aftermath thereof
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-15 21:44:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11239860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoirSongbird/pseuds/NoirSongbird
Summary: Jesse and Hanzo have had some time to settle into their relationship - and Jesse thinks there's nowhere else he'd rather be.Mini-sequel to Flowers Like Ashes; published for McHanzo Week 2017.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends o/ Here's my first entry for McHanzo Week 2017 -- I'm really hoping I can keep up with it, because writing a fic a day is actually really good for me in terms of focus and just. Wordmaking. So, yes, first entry is a small sequel to Flowers Like Ashes! Please enjoy :3

Mornings were different somehow, Jesse felt, when they started with waking up next to the love of your life. 

Hanzo was an early riser, but so was Jesse, and every once in a glorious while, he would wake first, and he would have a few moments of wonderful quiet where he could just….enjoy how peaceful Hanzo looked as he slept. There was a soft patter of rain against their window, and it created an atmosphere of gentle quiet, something that Jesse wanted to sink into and hold forever.

What they had was a desperately fragile thing, and Jesse never forgot that. These small moments, the ones where he got to really enjoy that Hanzo was actually, physically there and really, actually still loved him, were utterly precious - moreso for the fact that they could so easily not exist. Hanzo could have --  _ should have  _ \-- chosen to have the flowers that had grown in his lungs cut out, and then he would have stopped loving Jesse and, on the whole, he probably would have been better off.

There were still consequences. Angela insisted they’d stop eventually, but for now Hanzo’s lungs were weak, and he still had occasional coughing fits, and every time Jesse felt a jolt of fear that blood would come up again, like it had with the flowers towards the end. 

And the end  _ had  _ been something else. Hanzo swore he didn’t remember; Jesse wasn’t surprised, really. Hanzo had been half-conscious, in the transport to the hospital in Numbani, and Jesse had whispered a desperate “I love you,” and Hanzo smiled, and he’d been hit by racking coughs - except this time, instead of chuparosa petals, what had come up was a single, delicate silver lily. 

The flowers hadn’t returned, after that.

Jesse was determined that they wouldn’t. 

He felt Hanzo stir against him, and those whiskey-amber eyes slowly blinked open, and Jesse pressed a kiss to his forehead.

“Morning, darlin’,” he said, and he watched a slow smile spread across Hanzo’s face, and oh, that was...that was exactly what he wanted to see.

“Good morning,” he said, and then he settled right back into Jesse’s arms. “We are not expected anywhere, are we?” He asked.

“Well, no,” Jesse said, “not for a couple’a hours at least.” Hanzo hummed, briefly.

“Good,” he said, and then his arms slid around Jesse’s waist and he settled in, comfortably. “Rainy mornings are for staying in bed, I think.”

“Ain’t gonna argue with that,” Jesse said, fondly. It wasn’t often that he could get Hanzo to take a  _ break;  _ it wasn’t in his nature to be anything but constantly active. Moments of quiet peace were few and far between, as rare as rainy mornings back home in Santa Fe, and so Jesse was deeply content to enjoy both.

 

* * *

It was Jesse’s stomach rumbling that finally got them out of bed - things had been wonderfully quiet, and then came the loud, low growl, and there had been one more brief instant of quiet before Hanzo started to  _ giggle,  _ and the sound left Jesse so delighted he couldn’t even have thought of being embarrassed. 

“We should get breakfast,” Hanzo said, once his laughter had subsided.

_ This  _ was the Hanzo Jesse felt utterly blessed to see - a Hanzo that rolled out of bed and didn’t bother cleaning up beyond the very basics, because he was comfortable enough that he didn’t feel like he had to be perfect at every moment. (Not that he wasn’t anyway, in Jesse’s eyes, but Jesse supposed he might be  _ mildly  _ biased.) 

It had been a journey, achieving the level of domestic comfort that let Jesse wrap an arm around Hanzo’s waist and reel him in to steal a kiss before they stepped out into the hallway. Even after that terrible/wonderful day in Numbani when Jesse had finally admitted what he’d been feeling since a night on a rooftop in London, watching Hanzo spit defiance at Widowmaker when she dared suggest he would turn on Overwatch, it had been a learning process. Hanzo, Jesse knew, was hesitant to believe Jesse meant what he said; that hesitance was something Jesse knew he had to accept, because after the way he had treated Hanzo - after nearly a year of cold indifference and perhaps a month or two of tentative friendship, no matter the intense emotions on both sides - it didn’t exactly seem surprising that Hanzo found it hard to believe that Jesse could really, truly care for him.

So Jesse had endeavored to show it every way he could - words were words, but little gestures like bringing food when he was training, picking up small gifts when he ran across something that made him think of Hanzo (not flowers, never flowers - maybe there would be a time when that might be alright, but not yet), just. Being there for him, as best as Jesse could. The lingering cough, in the beginning, was utterly terrifying, because every single time, Jesse feared that there would be petals again, but there never was - no matter how much Hanzo shied away from affection or seemed to look for an ulterior motive, apparently, he never actually  _ doubted. _

Or maybe the flowers really were some kind of magical, and they never came back because in some metaphysical way the disease knew.

The first time Hanzo showed up at Jesse’s door in the middle of the night, kissing him desperately and riding the cowboy until he saw stars, Jesse woke up alone - and he tried not to take that to heart. Hanzo was still learning, and really, so was he - he’d dated, before, occasionally, and hooked up once or twice, but a long-term committed relationship was new to him and, he was damned well certain, new to Hanzo too. So he stayed gentle, and slow, and the second time Hanzo ended up in bed with him, they woke up together in the morning.

After that, Hanzo stayed.

 

* * *

 

By staying in bed a little longer, they’d missed most of the breakfast rush - there was still plenty of food, because Reinhardt was in and he cooked for an army, but the mess was quieter, and that suited Jesse just fine. The warm chatter of their friends was nice, but this morning seemed to lend itself to a less social breakfast. Hana was there, looking barely awake, and so was  Lúcio , but they were engrossed in conversation (sort of -  Lúcio was talking and, as best as Jesse could tell, Hana was nodding along vaguely as she drank a very large mug of coffee) and the most reaction either of them gave to Hanzo and Jesse’s entrance were hands raised in lazy waves of greeting.

It was a quiet, simple affair, the sort of thing that a morning with no responsibilities demanded, and it was amazing that such a thing could exist. Sometimes it felt like Overwatch was flying from one crisis to the next, barely holding the world together with duct tape and prayers, but for nearly a solid week, Talon had been silent.

Jesse insisted it was because their last victory had driven them underground. Hanzo was less optimistic - he was certain they were planning something, and they traded theories over breakfast, with no expectation of reaching a concrete answer. It was nice to be able to be concerned in somewhat abstracts - usually the question of “what is Talon doing” was terrifyingly, immediately relevant, but here, it wasn’t.

Jesse intended to hold onto this feeling of safety for as long as he could.

 

* * *

The rain continued throughout the day, which meant it was the sort of day best spent indoors, and though Jesse had to beg and plead for it, he eventually won them a lazy day spent watching movies - promises had been made regarding  _ Seven Samurai,  _ because Jesse was entirely certain it could not be nearly as good as any version of  _ The Magnificent Seven  _ and Hanzo was determined to prove him wrong. 

It was the sort of day a younger Jesse had been convinced he would never have, because whether he was an angry gunslinger from the Deadlock Gang or Blackwatch’s finest deadeye, he still wasn’t the sort of man who got quiet hours with someone he loved. 

Except now he  _ was,  _ and he thanked his lucky stars every day for that, and for Hanzo.

With a less engrossing movie, Jesse suspected he’d have fallen asleep around the middle, because it was dark and quiet and Hanzo was curled up against his side, and it was a recipe for a nice nap - but he had to follow the dialogue with subtitles, and that kept him awake and alert throughout, and by the end he had to grudgingly admit it was  _ almost  _ as good as  _ Magnificent Seven. _ Almost. Nothing beat out a good old cowboy story.

Hanzo laughed, and informed Jesse he was unaccountably biased, and Jesse agreed. He wasn’t exactly objective about most things, never pretended to be. But really, if you asked him, there were things a man was allowed to be biased about. 

And anyway, the movie wasn’t the point - the point was the time spent curled up with Hanzo, enjoying his company, watching him get enraptured in what was obviously an old favorite. 

A perfect morning into a perfect evening; genuinely, Jesse couldn’t think to ask for more.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's my entry for Day 3 of McHanzo week (for day 2 we took a brief detour over to my magical girl AU)~

Hanzo considered his solitude of paramount importance - or at least, he had for a long time. That was….not entirely true, any longer, were he being honest. Certainly he occasionally retreated to his high perch on top of the comm tower for a breath of air away from the rest of Overwatch, but...for the most part, he found he now preferred to spend any available downtime with  _ Jesse. _

This was not a place he had expected to find himself, and yet there he was, curled up on a couch with Jesse, watching the end of _The Seven Samurai_ and bickering fondly about whether or not it was superior to its American remake. (Clearly it was, of course, and it was only Jesse’s cowboy nostalgia that kept him from seeing the truth. Though, to be fair, Hanzo had not actually _seen_ _Magnificent Seven.)_

A few months ago, in the depths of his illness, when he had been entirely certain he would die long before Jesse looked at him as even a fellow soldier worth working with, never mind anything more, this would all have seemed utterly out of reach. He had feared Jesse’s first attempts at friendship, so much that he had tried to walk them off, because surely there was a punchline coming at his expense. Hanzo, the fool in love, desperate for scraps of attention from the subject of his feelings. 

There had been no mockery, no joke, nothing of the sort, no matter how long and how tensely Hanzo waited for the other shoe to drop. There was only increasingly blatantly sincere gestures of kindness, and eventually Hanzo had to accept that it was genuine.

Still, the idea that Jesse  _ loved him _ was horribly remote. He was not someone people fell in love with. He was a remorseless killer who had ended dozens, hundreds of lives, in the service of the Shimada clan and for money after he left them. Someone like Jesse, someone who held tightly to such concepts as  _ justice  _ and  _ mercy  _ and  _ second chances? _ Hanzo could not be someone he saw as worthy of loving. It was enough, Hanzo told himself, to have Jesse’s friendship as his health declined further and further. He could never have what he craved, of course, but he could have  _ enough. _

It was, if nothing else, far, far better than Jesse’s contempt. Hanzo would have taken anything at all over that, and even though he was unsure what exactly he had done to work himself, finally, into Jesse’s good graces, he never really bothered to ask. It felt like by questioning it he would end it - like if he asked Jesse  _ why,  _ he would remind him that there was no reason at all, and that would be it.

He had gone to Numbani knowing he was dying. He had not intended to choose his death that day, because he had expected that if there was violence it would be less of the  _ assassination _ variety and more of the  _ riot  _ variety, but when the chance came - to put himself in the path of a bullet and trade his own life for a member of the Shambali, who had already lost too much with the death of Mondatta - it hadn’t felt like a _ choice  _ so much as it felt like an  _ imperative.  _

It would be better that way, anyway. Far less lingering and wasting away that Genji would have to suffer through.

He had been  _ so sure  _ Genji would be the only one who paid his absence any mind. How stupid he had been. He had been so caught up in his own spiraling, terrible self-loathing that he hadn’t recognized Hana’s offers to practice with him, or Angela’s concern, or Lena’s insistence on trading tea blends as what they were - as offerings of genuine care. 

It had taken a desperate, wrung-out confession for Hanzo to realize that Jesse really might love him, too, and even then he had been hesitant. Afraid. Certain once again that there was another shoe that would drop, and he would be right back where he was, except incalculably worse for having experienced something better. It was hard to believe that he could have something so good, after everything he had done.

That seemingly inevitable moment of loss never came, because Jesse McCree was an amazingly sincere and wonderful man, and his love for Hanzo was true and genuine. It took far too long for Hanzo to trust that, but Jesse had been patient and caring and far more willing to wait than Hanzo had any right to expect.

For a time, Hanzo had feared that all of it - the friendship, the romance - were a product of guilt; that Jesse felt like he  _ owed  _ Hanzo kindness because Hanzo had loved him so much he nearly drowned in chuparosa petals. And yet without even knowing it existed, Jesse managed to soothe that fear, simply by being  _ himself.  _ By the way he genuinely looked happier when Hanzo was around, by the way he patiently let Hanzo come at his own pace for every step of their relationship. 

Most of all by the way Hanzo woke up one morning in Jesse’s bed, and opened his eyes to see Jesse smiling down at him like he was the happiest man on Earth, and then startling because he hadn’t realized Hanzo was waking up.

(Hanzo hadn’t been able to resist sitting up and kissing him solidly. It had been too wonderful a moment. They left bed rather late that morning, as a result.)

And now, there they were, cuddling while they argued about movies, right until McCree disentangled himself and stood up.

“Sugar,” McCree said with full certainty, “we are watching  _ The Magnificent Seven,  _ and if you ain’t convinced it’s better after that, then we’re watching the other  _ Magnificent Seven _ too.” Hanzo laughed, and shook his head. 

An utterly ridiculous man, but  _ his  _ utterly ridiculous man, somehow. It felt like a little miracle every time he acknowledged it; like it became just a little bit magical solely by seeming so utterly impossible. Like Jesse being his was more wonderful because of the difficulty it had taken to get there.

“What is the difference?” He asked, playfully, as Jesse retrieved the remote and began to flip through the extensive digitized movie archive on the Watchpoint’s servers.

“Second  _ Magnificent Seven _ ’s a remake,” Jesse said, “so we’re gonna watch the old one first, ‘cause it was done first, but the remake’s just as good.” Jesse considered for a moment. “Y’know, you almost remind me of Billy Rocks, from the remake. Terrifying assassin in love with a cowboy…”

“Is that so?” Hanzo asked, trying not to feel a silly flutter of delight and failing because  _ Jesse watched one of his favorite movies and thought of Hanzo.  _ “Then I suppose we  _ will  _ have to watch both. It is only fair,” he said dryly.

“Damned right,” Jesse said, dropping back onto the couch and slinging an arm around Hanzo, practically pulling him into his lap - which, as far as Hanzo was concerned, was perfectly wonderful. Jesse was warm and comfortable, and being bundled up in his arms spoke of safety and care, and there was nowhere Hanzo would rather be. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the entry for day 4, fairly loosely playing off the themes (but haven't they all been, really?)
> 
> Enjoy!

It was almost silly, the degree to which Hanzo associated the color red with Jesse McCree. There was the obvious, of course - his bright red serape, and the bright red chuparosa flowers that had grown in Hanzo’s lungs for him. But it was also the color his eyes turned for just a moment while he was lining up Deadeye, and the color of his sun-bleached but much-loved favorite blanket, and, as he described, the color of the walls of Deadlock Gorge, where he had grown up.

And now that Hanzo saw him in that environments, standing on a cliff haloed by the setting sun, it was difficult to imagine him anywhere else. They would return to Gibraltar eventually, of course, once the threat of Deadlock - McCree’s old gang - was dealt with, but until then, it felt like finally seeing Jesse exactly where he belonged.

“Are you...glad to be home?” Hanzo asked, taking a seat next to him. It was difficult to tell - Jesse had claimed a rocky perch that overlooked the gorge to watch the sunset, and his expression was pensive, but not  _ distressed  _ \- just also not  _ happy.  _

“Not sure yet,” Jesse said, and he leaned over to rest against Hanzo, sliding an arm around his waist and pulling him close. “Ain’t even sure it’s home anymore, really.” 

“Ah,” Hanzo said. It rang very, very familiar. He felt tugs of nostalgia thinking of Hanamura, and when he had been at his sickest he had considered going back there, but it no longer properly felt like  _ home.  _ “I understand.”

“Thought if anybody would, you would,” Jesse said, and his hand moved upward, snaking into Hanzo’s hair and undoing the scarf that kept it up. Hanzo let out a faint, happy sigh - there was a special kind of contentment that came from Jesse’s hands in his hair, stroking in slow, comforting motions. It felt absolutely heavenly, and it was a wonderful way to distract Hanzo from what could have very rapidly become a terrible train of thought. Thinking about home - about how he no longer hand one - was difficult and painful, and he avoided it for the most part. It meant touching on far too many pains that he was certain he should be over.

He’d had a decade, after all, and Genji was alive and forgave him. He should not still feel guilt.

But with Jesse, watching the sun slowly sink towards the horizon and paint the sky in reds and oranges, none of that mattered. It was remarkable how easy it was to forget his troubles when he was with the man he loved, who was all too eager to help him forget.

“Y’know,” Jesse said, after a long, contented silence,  “I’d been thinking about bringing you here. Showing you all this. Not this way - not chasing down Deadlock - but, you know. ‘Cause I love you, and I want you to see where I come from.”

“I…” Hanzo blinked, slowly. It always startled him, just….hearing an  _ I love you  _ from Jesse unprompted, and it really shouldn’t, not anymore, because Jesse wa all too happy to hand them out. “I would like that. Perhaps when we have finished here, you can show me everything you wished to.”

“Hope we can find the time,” Jesse said warmly. “I’d like you to meet Ma - she’ll love you, I bet she’ll think you’re the best choice I’ve made since I left home to go run off with Deadlock, which means you'll have beat out joining Overwatch.”

“Your  _ mother?” _ Hanzo couldn’t remember Jesse ever really mentioning family, and this was something of a surprise. 

“Ah, right,” Jesse said, “I never told you about her. She ain’t my real mom -  _ she  _ died when I was fifteen, and you can put together the rest of  _ that  _ story.” Hanzo absolutely could. Jesse had joined Deadlock at fifteen. It wasn’t hard to find the catalyst. “Ma runs a diner in town, the Panorama, and she and my mom were good friends, so she helped out for a long while after my dad got killed. But then things got real bad with Mom’s health, and she died, and...I was too young and dumb and proud to ask Ma for help. Rasn off to Deadlock ‘cause I thought it was the better option. She came to find me, tried to get me to come home with her, but I wouldn’t.” He shook his head. “Lost contact with her for a while. Found her again a couple years after I joined Blackwatch, and she invited me right back in like no time had passed at all.”

“She sounds incredible,” Hanzo said. It was almost foreign to him, that kind of maternal warmth. His own mother had loved him and Genji, certainly, but she had died when they were very young, and his father had...not been a warm man. And there had been no one outside the clan or in it who took it upon themselves to help the heir. Or, Hanzo suspected, the spare. 

“She is.” Jesse agreed. He smiled fondly. “And we’ll have to eat at the Panorama - don’t drink the coffee though, tastes like boiled dirt.” Hanzo raised his eyebrows.

“It  _ must  _ be truly awful, if even you can acknowledge it.” He said. Their affectionate tiff over tea and coffee was practically a running joke; Jesse’s overly strong coffees were horrifically unpleasant to Hanzo, who preferred his coffee heavily sweetened if he drank it at all. 

“Hey, I know my coffee.” Jesse raised his metal hand, the one not gently tangled in Hanzo’s hair,l to his chest, as an emphatic gesture. “The stuff I make is  _ good,  _ you just don’t appreciate it.   


“No,” Hanzo agreed, “I don’t.” Jesse laughed, fondly. “Besides your...adoptive mother and her diner, is there anywhere else we should see, while we’re here?”

“Well, shit,” Jesse said, “we’ll be kicking down Deadlock’s door, ‘tween that and Ma’s diner, you’ll have seen pretty much everything of my childhood that’s left.” It was Hanzo’s turn to laugh a little, and he leaned over to press a kiss to Jesse’s cheek.

“I will have to take you to Hanamura, sometime,” he said. “There is much to see, and I would like it if you saw it with me. In the spring, preferably, when the cherry blossoms are in full bloom.”

“I’d like that a lot, darlin’,” Jesse said warmly.

There was silence for a little while longer as the sun finally sank below the horizon, and moonlight bathed the gorge in blue. 

“You know why this ain’t really home anymore?” Jesse asked. 

“Hm?” Hanzo felt a brief bubble of confusion. The way Jesse talked about this place, it  _ did  _ rather sound like he still considered it home, and yet, apparently not.

“I’ve got a new home,” Jesse said. “Back at Gibraltar. Or wherever you are, really.”

Hanzo couldn’t help the smile that broke its way across his face.

“My home is wherever you are as well, Jesse.” He said. Jesse turned and kissed him, and Hanzo sighed into it and closed his eyes.

Home was a room back at the Watchpoint, that was definitely true, where his things and Jesse’s intermingled because there was no way to separate them, where sometimes all he could find was one of Jesse’s shirts or they both managed to be out of socks because one was too lazy to do laundry. But home was also a soft kiss in the moonlight, overlooking Deadlock Gorge and knowing that tomorrow they would be rooting out the gang that had haunted Jesse’s footsteps since he was a boy. 

Home, truly, was where the heart was. And Hanzo’s was with Jesse McCree.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's days 5 and 6, a little late but all together in one big update <3 That means we're almost at the end, but never fear! This particular chapter very, very lightly references events in an upcoming fic set in the Love Like Flowers universe, a Mercymaker fic currently titled _Flowers Like Freedom._ It's about halfway done, and should be released shortly! And even after that, oh. There's so much more coming. I have _so very many_ stories to tell in this universe, so I hope you're all along for the ride!

Hanamura was beautiful, any time of year. Hanzo had intended to wait for springtime to take Jesse there, so they could enjoy it with the cherry blossoms in full bloom, but things hadn’t quite worked out that way. Widowmaker’s -  _ Amélie’s -  _ intelligence had indicated that the Shimada clan was starting to move back into Hanamura properly - which, frankly, if you asked Hanzo, was utterly rude. He and Genji had compared notes on who in the family they had eliminated over the years - and the list was extensive; most anyone who had a proper right to the castle or leadership of the clan was dead. 

Still, someone was using the name  _ Shimada  _ around Hanamura, and that meant whoever they were, they were the responsibility of the last remaining members of the clan’s main branch.

He had never expected that Amélie’s arrival at the Watchpoint that rainy Gibraltar evening would start a chain of events that eventually led him back home, to hopefully finish off the clan and remove their influence for good, but that was where he was.  


That, though, was for later. For now, Hanzo and Jesse were doing reconnaissance.

Inasmuch as attending a local festival could be classed as  _ reconnaissance.  _

Hanzo took his duty very seriously, and part of that was a duty to end his family’s influence, but whatever eighth cousin with delusions of grandeur was sitting in the castle trying to run off an unearned reputation and a name he didn’t deserve could wait while Hanzo enjoyed being back in Hanamura and, more importantly, enjoyed every second of  _ Jesse  _ enjoying Hanamura.

Jesse looked lovely in a traditional yukata, pulled together solely for the festival, so the two of them could blend in - as much as his ruggedly American boyfriend could blend in here at all, but there were plenty of tourists, so it wasn’t too terrible. He looked incredibly handsome, and the delighted way he was watching everything and everyone just added to it. They had taken an outdoor seat at a tea shop on the main road, and Hanzo was happy to let his lover drink in all the sights. They had already wandered the festival some, trying out street food and playing games and generally enjoying it all, and taking a seat felt like taking a much-needed rest for their feet.

The whole mission felt rather ironic, all things considered. Hanzo reached up to run a hand over his newly shorn hair, a change he had gone for not long before leaving for Hanamura. It had felt like letting go of his past, and promising to himself that he could move forward towards the future. 

Part of him had been nervous about returning - that somehow by flinging himself back into the family intrigues he might somehow take three steps backward for every one he had taken forward since he left. That he might, in some strange scenario, be dragged back into the Shimada clan.

That somehow his father, a decade dead, would be waiting inside the castle gates to click his tongue and chastise Hanzo for being out late and that would be it, this entire fantasy of freedom would end, and he would be right back under the family’s thumb.

None of that was going to happen. He and Genji - and Jesse, and Amélie, who had insisted on coming because it was  _ her  _ information and she wanted to see it through - would take out the pretender and whoever he had gathered, and the Shimada name would once again be nothing but a footnote in Hanamura’s history. 

“Y’know,” Jesse said, pulling Hanzo out of his thoughts and back into the moment, “I gotta confess, this ain’t the first time I’ve been here.”

“Oh?” Hanzo asked. He had his suspicions, frankly - he doubted it was a coincidence Genji had ended up with Blackwatch, after all.

“Yeah, Reyes an’ me were here, right around when, uh.” Jesse made a vague hand gesture and trailed off.

“When I tried to kill Genji,” Hanzo filled in. It was sweet, how Jesse tried to avoid difficult subjects - how he danced around Hanzo’s hanahaki, or that terrible day when Hanzo struck his brother down, or any of the other emotional minefields that lay scattered around Hanzo. It was clearly out of concern, and Hanzo appreciated that, deeply - but sometimes it just needed to be said, and most days simply acknowledging what he did all those years back was nowhere near enough to send him into any sort of emotional spiral, no matter how much Jesse clearly worried about that.

“Yeah, that,” Jesse said a little sheepishly.

“I was aware Blackwatch was in the country - in the area, in fact - but I wasn’t aware you specifically were on the team assigned to dealing with my family.” It was strange, Hanzo thought. If he and Jesse had met back then, how  _ different  _ might things have been? Would he have fallen for the brash young Blackwatch operative the way he fell for the grown man? It was hard to imagine a scenario in which he  _ didn’t  _ fall desperately head over heels for Jesse, but he had been such a different person back then. Would he have allowed himself to pursue it?

(Would he have ended up coughing up chuparosa petals anyway?)

“Yeah,” Jesse said, “Reyes kept me with him for a lot of the big deal assignments. Your family was a big deal assignment.” He coughed, briefly. “We, ah, had some plants in your organization.”

“I am aware,” Hanzo said, and then he sighed. “Did Genji ever tell you  _ why  _ I was ordered to kill him?” 

“He said it was ‘cause he was failing the family, not doing his duty.” Jesse shrugged his shoulders. “I ran into him a couplea times back then, always in bars or clubs. Kinda figured  _ that’s  _ what it was.”

“That was part of it,” Hanzo acknowledged. “But it was also because the elders believed him to be one of your Blackwatch plants.” He stared down at his cup of tea. “I argued. I insisted he could not be - that no matter how much time he spent doing anything but his duties, he would never betray us. That there was a wide gulf between laziness and treason. But...they had evidence. He interacted with known Blackwatch agents.” A slightly bitter, ironic smile cut its way across Hanzo’s face. “He slept with one of them. It painted a damning picture.”

“Damn,” Jesse said. Hanzo chanced a glance up, and he watched what he was certain were the pieces clicking into place in Jesse’s mind. “And of course with all that, you...had to.”

“I would have had to anyway,” Hanzo said, slightly bitterly. “When the clan demanded something, it was done. But the evidence made it much harder to argue.”

“Deadlock was the same way,” Jesse said. “Blackwatch too, lookin’ back, but most of the time in Blackwatch I could feel like I was doing the right thing.”

“Mmm,” Hanzo said. He slipped back into silence, staring down at his tea. He felt a surge of shame, absurdly - like in confessing he was attempting to rationalize the deed away, even though he knew that was the last thing he was doing. 

One of Jesse’s hands slid into his under the table and squeezed, gently, and that was enough to get Hanzo to look back up.

“You know I don’t think any less of you for all that, right?” Jesse asked. “You’ve been trying to make up for all that for ten years, and it’s almost killed you twice that I  _ know of.  _ ‘Sides, Genji’s forgiven you, ain’t no way I can hold it against you.” 

“I…” Hanzo trailed off, and then he smiled. “Thank you, Jesse.” This time, when they lapsed into silence, it was warm and comforting. Hanzo watched as Jesse’s attention briefly drifted back to the crowd moving through the streets and smiled fondly to see it. His childlike glee at everything around them warmed Hanzo’s heart; it was good to see someone as seemingly jaded as Jesse McCree still had plenty of room to enjoy the little moments in life.

“This is sorta like our first date,” Jesse said, apropos of nothing except, Hanzo suspected, the thought crossing his mind. He tilted his head to the side and thought about it - the lunch in the restaurant right before Hanzo had foolishly confessed his feelings  _ certainly  _ didn’t count, and on reflection, despite being together for several months, it was true - they had never been on a proper date.

“Well then, looking at things through that lens,” Hanzo said lightly, “there is somewhere I need to show you.”

“That so?” Jesse perked up, clearly eager.

“It is so,” Hanzo said. “Come; it will be lovely.”

 

* * *

The place Hanzo led Jesse to was popular as a spot for dates - and had been for years. It was a hill that overlooked most of Hanamura, and at the height of cherry blossom season, it was covered in a curtain of pink and white. Hanzo guided Jesse to one of the benches scattered around, which gave them a perfect spot to sit and enjoy the view. Hanzo had a dish of takoyaki, and Jesse had a bowl of yakisoba, both picked up from street vendors.

“Getting the lay of the land?” Jesse teased, gently nudging Hanzo’s side. Hanzo laughed, and shook his head.

“I still remember every street in this city,” he said, lifting a taokyaki ball to his mouth and taking a bite. He had missed this - the authentic flavors of home. There was a Japanese restaurant in Gibraltar, but it wasn’t the  _ same,  _ even if it clearly did its best to be. “That was considered critical knowledge for me to have.”

“I bet,” Jesse said, shaking his head. “You’re not worried at all?”

“No,” Hanzo said. “Whoever this is, neither Genji nor I deemed them worth killing. Their connection to the family is tangential at best; even with Talon backing, we have a fine team. They won’t survive.” He popped the rest of the takoyaki into his mouth, taking a moment to enjoy it. “Besides,” he said once he was finished, “we have two of the finest snipers in the world covering two of the best close-combatants in the world. This will be, to use one of your American expressions, a piece of cake.” 

Jesse raised his eyebrows, looking amused.

“You’re real confident about that,” he said, though Hanzo couldn’t help but notice that he’d puffed up at the compliment to his skills. 

“Of course I am,” Hanzo said. “How could I be anything but?” He gave Jesse a smile. “We will worry about the mission tomorrow. Tonight, let’s enjoy our first date.” Jesse lit up at the reminder, and leaned over to steal a kiss. 

“Can’t believe it’s you saying that, sugar,” Jesse said. “More used to you being all mission-first, no-nonsense.”

“I can enjoy myself, from time to time,” Hanzo said, and then he picked up a takoyaki ball and offered it to Jesse. “Here, try this. I have seen you eyeing them the entire time I’ve had them.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Jesse said, and he didn’t even bother taking it off Hanzo;’s chopsticks, just leaned forward and ate it. Hanzo laughed, and returned to eating his food, watcihng Jesse process the flavors. “That was good,” he said. “What’s in it?”

“Octopus,” Hanzo replied.

“You’re serious?” Jesse asked, looking surprised.

“Of course I am serious,” Hanzo said. “Takoyaki is octopus fried in batter.”

“That’s...wow,” Jesse shook his head. “Never had much in the way of seafood growing up. Been getting more used to it at Gibraltar, but  _ octopus  _ ain’t a fish I ever thought I’d be eating.” Hanzo grinned.

“And now you have had a new experience,” he said. 

“I’m having ‘em all the time,” Jesse said, “and always with you.” He leaned over and stole a kiss, and Hanzo sighed into it. It was languid and slow and lazy, exactly the kind of kiss Hanzo desired after the kind of long, slow, languid day they’d shared. “And ain’t nobody I’d rather they be with.”

“I feel the same,” Hanzo said. 

His relationship with Jesse was a long, glorious series of firsts, and if it was up to Hanzo, that would never end.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here's the last piece of From the Ashes! As I said, this isn't the end of the series, and I want to thank everyone who has commented! This has been super fun and all your support is the only reason I finished this. <3

Ilios, Jesse decided, was exactly the kind of place where a man could happily retire. It was relatively peaceful, coastal and sunny, and most importantly, only had a  _ little bit  _ of Talon activity. Sure, they’d been nosing around about some of the artifacts, but a little smuggling was a perfectly respectable way for an evil terrorist organization to raise money, if you asked Jesse, and also because their operation was barely off the ground it had been an absolute cakewalk for Overwatch to dismantle the whole thing.

Which meant he got the pleasure of a day in Ilios where the most pressing thing he had to do was watch Hanzo sunbathe. Or, well, attempt to convince Hanzo that sunbathing on the beach was a valid way to spend an entire day. Then again, he’d had a lot of luck with convincing Hanzo of the need for leisure, generally; it almost surprised him, because his initial impressions of Hanzo had included the idea that he was incapable of relaxing.

Even in the little things, he’d been wrong. Certainly Hanzo was serious, often, and he was intensely  _ focused,  _ but he was in no way  _ joyless. _

As it turned out, it didn’t actually take all that much to get Hanzo down to the beach, especially not when the entire rest of the group was going. He was actually fairly eager to spend time with the team, which was good to see. 

And that was how Jesse McCree ended up on a beach not far outside Ilios, taking in the sun and sand, relaxing comfortably in a lounge chair and fully content to enjoy the natural view. 

That was, he was all for enjoying the natural beauty of the Greek coastline right up until he watched Hanzo Shimada pull off his shirt and head towards the water, and suddenly that was all he could focus on. He’d seen Hanzo in far less than the swimsuit he was wearing, and yet the sight still managed to utterly arrest him. It was absurd how muscular Hanzo was, how he kept himself in perfectly-toned shape. All of it was utterly unfair and Jesse was vaguely regretting insisting on going to the beach with the rest of the team, because what he  _ really  _ wanted was Hanzo all to himself.

Hanzo undid his hair tie and discarded it almost thoughtlessly in the general direction of the rest of his clothes, letting the still-long parts of his undercut locks loose, and then dove into the water. 

When he surfaced a little ways away from where he went under, he put Jesse in the mind of some kind of god-born merman, breaking from the surf to be briefly glimpsed by sailors who would tell tales of his beauty far and wide. The Ilios sun glimmering off the water on his skin gave him an utterly ethereal quality, and really, all he needed was a rock to lean against and he’d be the perfect imitation of a siren, ready to lure men to their deaths. Jesse was pretty sure that all Hanzo would have to do was whistle and  _ he’d  _ happily fling himself into danger, at least.

Hanzo turned to look back at Jesse, and Jesse was far too taken in by how incredible he looked to notice the devilish little smirk that played its way across Hanzo’s face.

He really should have been paying more attention.

“Are you going to get in the water, Jesse?” Hanzo asked, and there it was, the siren’s song, calling him towards the sea. He hadn’t really planned to get in the water - he  _ could  _ swim, but it wasn’t his  _ favorite  _ thing - but with Hanzo asking, there was no way he was going to say no.

“On my way, darlin’,” Jesse said, and Hanzo grinned wider, and oh, yeah, he  _ definitely  _ regretted that they didn’t have this beach all to themselves because he wanted to kiss that grin off Hanzo’s face, and then kiss a whole lot lower, but that would have to wait. Jesse had very little in the way of restraint regarding public displays of affection, it was true, but there  _ was  _ a line. Probably. 

He splashed into the water, with much less grace than Hanzo, and he had to admit, it  _ was  _ nice. Warm, but not uncomfortably so, and a bright shade of turquoise, and generally just  _ nice. _

Mostly, though, he was taken in by the view. Hanzo was slowly striding over to him, and if the expression on his face was any indicator, he was well aware of exactly how distracted Jesse was by him.

They met in the middle, and Hanzo tugged him a little deeper into the water, so that it was up to his calves, and Jesse completely forgot that there was anyone else there because he was completely entranced by Hanzo.

And then there was a strong grip on his upper arms, and Hanzo spun him around and flung him into deeper water, and Jesse landed on his ass in the sand with a  _ splash.  _ It wasn’t so deep that he was wholly underwater, even sitting, but he  _ was  _ fairly well submerged and very,  _ very  _ wet.

“Situational awareness, cowboy,” Hanzo teased, leaning in closer, and Jesse immediately took advantage of Hanzo being in arm’s reach, grabbing Hanzo’s arms and yanking his boyfriend down on top of him.

“Situational awareness, archer,” he teased back. Hanzo started laughing, and that was about when Jesse gave up resisting the urge to kiss him.

“Get a room, you two,” Lena said with exaggerated exasperation, and that snapped him back to reality, though he didn’t stop kissing Hanzo until he was good and ready.

 

* * *

 

Their hotel room overlooked the beach, with huge windows that really made Jesse wonder exactly what kind of accommodations budget Winston was running on and where the hell he was getting the money from. All of Ilios was beautiful, but they had one of the finest views, if you asked Jesse, and it was made finer because there was a post-shower Hanzo leaning against the window.

“You seemed rather entranced this afternoon,” Hanzo said lightly, though there was something smoldering in his eyes that belied the casual attitude of his voice. It sent a thoroughly pleasant shiver up Jesse’s spine.

“You’re a hard man to look away from,” Jesse said. “Can’t seem to take my eyes off you now, either.” 

“Good,” Hanzo said, slowly sauntering over to Jesse. “That is exactly what I want.” When Hanzo tugged him down into a searing kiss by the front of his sleep shirt, Jesse swore his heart stopped for a moment. Hanzo had that effect on him, always.

Hanzo began backing him up, and Jesse ended up practically tripping onto the bed, sprawling on it and pulling Hanzo with him.

“You’ve got every bit of my attention, Han, I can promise you that,” Jesse said, a little breathlessly.

“I can tell,” Hanzo hummed, clearly pleased with himself. “I imagine you had some  _ ideas  _ earlier; perhaps you ought to show me some of the things you were thinking of.”

“Oh, darlin’,” Jesse grinned, “I’ll gladly show you every single one.”

**Author's Note:**

> Talk to me on tumblr, at [noirsongbird!](http://noirsongbird.tumblr.com)


End file.
